This looks like a disaster that may take years to recover from and will impact the salmon coming up for the fall run in the Sacramento, Feather and American Rivers.
Bay cleanup efforts expanding
LINGERING CONSEQUENCES: Spill will have far-ranging effects on plants and animals in and around bay for years, scientists fear
Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
Sunday, November 11, 2007
A major oil spill is making San Francisco Bay look like a dirty bathtub, and the ring of black that soils the shoreline is likely to pose dire consequences for birds, mice, ducks, fish and the smallest of aquatic creatures for years to come, scientists say.
Hidden under rocks or lying deep in the sediment and soil in wetlands and the bottom of the bay, the residue from 58,000 gallons of ship oil could remain for years, daubing creatures with a fatal blob or contaminating the food chain.
"It's pretty awful," said John McCosker, a senior scientist at the California Academy of Sciences.
While the long-term impact of Wednesday's spill from the Cosco Busan container ship is yet to be known, one scientist assessing it said the accident is similar to the last big oil spill in the bay.
In 1996, the cargo ship Cape Mohican dumped 40,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil into the bay off San Francisco's southeastern waterfront, fouling the shore from Candlestick Point to the Golden Gate. The oil hit Angel and Alcatraz islands, went as far north as the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, and traveled west out of the Golden Gate a mile or two past the coastline.
"It was a lot like this spill," said Dan Welsh, division chief for environmental contaminants for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who also worked on an assessment team in 1996. Both incidents involved a similar fuel type and amount, and coated mudflats and beaches.
"The Cape Mohican spill had some serious impacts to birds and to the habitats that were oiled," Welsh said. "But there was also a good cleanup, particularly at Angel Island, and things did recover."
Scientists disagree about the lasting damage from the Cape Mohican spill. But now officials are thinking more about cleanup than recovery as oil still spreads from the new spill.
Some of the bunker fuel oil immediately headed out to the open ocean, where it threatens seabirds, diving ducks and marine mammals.
Oil that is now sloshing around the heart of the bay puts at risk the last of the fall run of Central Valley chinook salmon traveling toward the Sacramento and Feather rivers. Herring, awaiting the winter rains offshore, will enter the bay to spawn in December.
